A White Lie
by Darkness1OOO
Summary: Six months after defeating XANA, and shutting off the Supercomputer, the Lyoko gang is suddenly and unexpectedly confronted with the past, by a special set of investigators. Set after the end of Code Lyoko, not Evolution. Evolution never happened in this universe. Set after the end of Lie to me*.
1. Un Monde Sans Danger

Half a year.

It's been half a year since the supercomputer was turned off.

Odd and Ulrich broke the habit first (well, technically William was first), but they still remember. Yumi broke it a little afterwards, despite having wanted to turn off the supercomputer first. Jeremie was hard to lose the habit. He would carry the laptop everywhere, still occasionally nervously glancing at it, expecting it to suddenly beep. He jumped out of his chair a few times, reacting to other beeps such as cell phones, etc. Aelita broke the habit last. She would visit the Hermitage constantly, in her free time. Reminiscing on echoes, taking souvenirs, such as the book on norse mythology. She would go to the Factory too, they all would visit every so often, but none of them ever went further into it than the main atrium.

Life was peaceful. They still had classes together, except for Yumi and William, obviously. Jeremie and Aelita maintained a constant high, possibly even higher, grade. Odd, Ulrich, Yumi, and William each had their grade pick up a bit compared to when they were being heroes. Outside of Lyoko, their only worries were school. Aelita occasionally pondered her mother, her past, her forged existence. Aelita Stones. Not Aelita Hopper. Not Aelita Schaeffer. She sometimes worried when things like the future came up - driver's licenses, college applications, resumé. Jeremie assured her that everything would be fine. He covered all his tracks and all future tracks.

"Quiet down, children. We have special guests here today, from America, for the Psychology course." The students settled down from their idle chatter and focused on the entryway to the classroom. Principal Delmas and the psychology teacher both lead in a middle-aged man, dressed semi-formally, followed by a middle-aged lady dress more formally, a younger man dressed rather informally, and a younger woman dressed semi formally.

"This, is The Lightman Group," Mr. Delmas stated clearly.


	2. Brand New Day

"Dr. Lightman?" Anna's voice rang through his office, distracting him from whatever he was doing beforehand. Dr. Lightman became agitated, yelling out, "Oi, you can't just barge into my office whenever it suits you." Lightman exited his study to find, in addition to Anna, two well-dressed gentlemen. "Ah, the government. You still can't barge into my office whenever it suits you." He strolled over to his desk and fell into his chair. "Alright then, out with it."

The first gentleman, dressed in a typical black, blue tie, suit, approached. He appeared mid-40s, white, short blond hair. He also seemed rather distressed. He began speaking in a mildly thick French accent, "Dr. Lightman, we are not here on part of _your_ government. The government of France is requesting your services."

"Well, the entire government of France? _Bonjour, monsieurs._"

"It is a matter of national security, sir."

Lightman was instantly amused by the very reference of the term, national security. "Oh, so you have that over there, too. We have tons of national security matters here. What is it that makes yours so special, snowflake?"

The second man, dressed in an identical suit, wearing glasses and appearing only slightly younger stated, "We would like to investigate security matters involving a rogue piece of technology, previously lost a decade, only to reappear within the previous few years."

"Ah, missing technology. Fun for all ages. Do you have people? I read faces, not code. That would be Loker's area of profession."

The older man briefly looked down, before the younger man quickly filled in a very short "Yes." Before Lightman had a chance to comment on that lie, Gillian entered the room. "I was walking by your room, and I see lying government agents. What's happening here, Cal?"

"These two gentlemen are trying to sell me tickets to France. Do you think it's a good idea, Foster?"

"Well that entirely depends on what we'd be doing there," Gillian said, rather perplexed. The Lightman Group is mostly a local or federal agency, not an international one.

The older man took the opportunity to recover, stating, "We would like you to investigate the sudden usage of rogue technology. Who and why. We will pay you for the investigation, flight, and your time."

"Sounds like a good deal to me, how about you, Foster?"

"Well, we would have to leave someone here. We can't just leave the office abandoned," Foster said, rather concerned.

The older gentleman injected with a short notice that the presence of Dr. Lightman, Dr. Foster, Ms. Torres, and Mr. Loker have all been requested. "Well then, we'll just leave Anna, those two interns, Wallowski, and that fellow Torres brought to me a bit ago. I'm positive D.C. won't burn down while we're gone." Foster began to speak but was cut off by Lightman asking the gentlemen to get them flights to France. They nodded and walked away. "Anna, you're in charge!" Lightman followed the gentlemen out of the room. Gillian looked back and forth between Cal and Anna and eventually followed Cal. Anna stood, stunned in confusion.

* * *

"So, why are we flying out to France?" Torres asked, again, now that they were mid-flight. "Yeah, uh, we aren't being told anything," Loker followed. Lightman just sighed frustratedly, but Gillian cut him off, "We are heading to France to investigate a national security issue of theirs involving missing technology of supposedly advanced sorts. All we know so far is that a while ago, some man named Waldo Schaeffer went missing. He had qualms about the project he was working on, but he eventually broke off. He was never seen again. He had access to extremely powerful technology, and there are concerns he replicated it for his own purposes." Torres took this in, then realized, "Wait, we're doing jobs for the government again?" Cal then piped in, "_Oui_, but it's not for _our_ government. See?" Loker and Torres both glanced at each other skeptically. Lightman was Lightman.

They remained silent most of the flight. There wasn't really much to talk about. It was just the four of them, in a foreign country. Cal had arranged for Emily to stay with Zoe. The remaining had no real attachments to keep them from going or to otherwise arrange. The office was under control, and this case was likely to be unique.

"We are arriving at Paris-Orly Airport. Nous arrivons à Aéroport d'Orly."


	3. Brusque Retour

"The Lightman Group an American private firm focusing on crime solving via applied psychology - microexpressions and other body language." The older woman, who had introduced herself as Dr. Foster, stated this while Ms. Torres and Mr. Loker set up a display, and Dr. Lightman appeared to be scanning the room. Ms. Torres began, "Here we have the seven primary microexpressions." Mr. Loker continued, "These seven microexpressions display a basic emotion, not in order: Anger, contempt, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise." Ms. Torres finished, "Would anyone like to attempt to guess the seven?" A few people raised their hands, others preferring to just watch and learn.

"You, in the pinkish t-shirt, how about you?" She stood up and proudly introduced herself, "I'm Sissi. Sissi _Delmas._" Dr. Lightman scoffed, quickly stating, "The princess of the class, eh?" She shot him a quick glare and continued to the chalkboard. She went, from left to right, "Joy, fear, errrr, joy again, sadness, ...disgust, contempt, anger," finishing the last word with a sense of pride. Mr. Loker interrupted her moment with, "Not quite. You mixed up anger and disgust, and you said joy twice. The first one was actually surprise." She huffed and sat back down, and the group continued on.

"Not everyone is readily able to read faces. Some take years of studying, such as Dr. Lightman and Mr. Loker, whereas some can do it naturally, such as myself." A student raised their hand. "Ms. Torres, does Dr. Foster read faces?" Dr. Foster stepped to the forefront and and stated, amicably, "My range of expertise isn't actually facial and body language - while I am fairly proficient in it I mostly specialize at vocal expressions - the tone of your voice or the choice of language."

Another question, "Why don't you use something else for lie detection, like uh, polygraphs?" Dr. Lightman filled in for this one, cutting off Ms. Torres. "The reason you can't use a polygraph, or rely on one anyway, is that it's too vague. For instance," There was suddenly a very loud and piercing pop, causing Ulrich, Odd, Jeremie, and Aelita to nearly jump out of their seats. "See, that, kids, is the reason a polygraph won't work. If you were all hooked to a polygraph, those four would've made the polygraph tear the paper in half."

Class ended shortly after. The group left and met up with Yumi and William around the benches. Yumi and William's class went as normal, whereas the other four had a more interesting class. They watched as the four americans were approached by Milly and Tamiya. They didn't seem to be really getting anything in the way of news from them. They shooed them away and then Ms. Loker and Ms. Torres headed off-campus, while Drs. Lightman and Foster headed towards the administration building.

They had no classes for the rest of the day, and despite how interesting the americans and their science was, there were better things to do. As such, they headed for the rec room, full of activities to idle them until the end of the day. There was also homework, but that could wait until they had access to their rooms. William and Ulrich played ping-pong, Odd played a video game, Yumi read a book, and Jeremie and Aelita watched a show with Sissi while intermittently coding on their laptops.

"So, what did you think of the Americans?" William asked as he bounced the ball back to Ulrich. Sissi pouted. Odd just kind of shrugged, Ulrich mumbled the equivalent, and Jeremie and Aelita's words tripped over each other trying to state their interest. "I thought their science was really interesting - reading people's thoughts based on their actions," Aelita started. Jeremie finished, "Yeah, and I think I've heard about them a few times - they've supposedly helped out with some big cases over in America!"

Ulrich reflected the ball, scoring a point. "Yeah, well, it wasn't very nice of that Dr. Lightman fellow to startle us like that." Odd nodded, commenting, "Yeah, well, he didn't seem very _nice _in general!" He almost immediately exclaimed a new level afterwards. Jeremie thought for a moment, and then said, "It's weird, though. They're a firm that solves crimes in America, not one that displays psychology in France. Why are they here?"


End file.
